“We humans try to alienate beauty from function. We have evolved with beauty around us. Everything we look at is beautiful: a stone is beautiful, a mountain is beautiful, an autumn leaf falling is beautiful, and a flower is beautiful. The flower is the most functional element on the tree,” said Jeevak Badve, vice president and director of strategic growth at Sundberg-Ferar Inc. in Walled Lake, Michigan. “It is function and beauty—you can see it in nature and non-man-made objects—it is always there; so why are we delinking that? Why can’t we use it for our benefit?” Badve added. Leveraging this inherent relationship between function and beauty, which Badve noted…

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The inaugural competition announces 10 winning projects in a celebration of design and highlight of innovation in business across the city’s neighborhoods. Text: R.J. Weick Design Core Detroit, a non-profit organization championing design-driven businesses, and AIA Detroit officially announced the 10 winning projects of the inaugural Commerce Design: Detroit competition during a special ceremony held Oct. 25, 2018 at the Garden Theatre on Woodward in Midtown. The competition not only recognizes brick-and-mortar commercial projects submitted jointly by business owner and design team, but also celebrates entrepreneurism and the value of design throughout the City of Detroit, Highland Park, and Hamtramck neighborhoods in the last five years. Of the 37…

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Text: R.Collins In the early 2000s, when the invasive Emerald Ash Borer beetle sparked an epidemic in southeastern Michigan, many trees native to the region had to be cut down and replaced. Then, about five years ago, Jenny Barger, co-founder and director of sales and marketing at Live Edge Detroit, received a coffee table composed of ash wood and beautifully exposed Emerald Ash Borer etchings from her brother Joe Barger. The table sparked a business idea that would bring a new supply of natural materials to Detroit’s do-it-yourself and sustainable design scenes, and shortly thereafter, Live Edge Detroit was born. With support from their father, Mike Barger, who is a…